Having never celebrated Harvest Thanksgiving before I find myself having done six in seven days. Not bad for an initiation in 'We Plough the Fields and Scatter'.
I was a particularly fussy eater as a child and had a enourmous hate list which narrowed things down on the savory side to Steak and Kidney Pie, KFC and Heinz Ravoli. I recall at the age of six being put in detention with the tomato I wouldnt let touch my lips. Each time I found more crafty ways to hide my nemesis, out of windows, down the loo, under pot plants. Today I still hold some food hates, including mushrooms, cauliflower, and whites of eggs. Every year I have celebrated a Passover and to get into the spirit of things I made sure I go for the boiled egg in full. It reminds me that like the bitter herbs of Passover - our spiritual journeys includes the things we dont like.
The food I most appreciate is chocolate. I must border on addiction here. I lived in my paternal grandparents deli in Bruxelles for two years and they often had whole displays made from either chocolate or marzipan. Of course these shop window pieces all had to go and someone had to eat it!!! But in this more enlightened age we are asked to consider where does my chocolate come from? Who made it and at what cost? Is there someone at the other end of the world picking cocoa beans for a pittance so that I might enjoy it.
Food, the ones we like and the ones we don't, have much to prompt us to think about our neighbour and our spiritual journey. The greatest food is of course the bread of life, Jesus Christ, who comes to us in our Eucharist that we may feed on him. We eat so we may be transformed, or to quote St Augustine, we become what we eat.
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